Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Picturing A Brain Injury

Excerpt from Science Friday: (click for entire article)

In 2004, journalist Eliette Markhbein was struck by a car while riding her bike. The collision split her helmet in half “like a ripe watermelon,” and left Markhbein with injuries to her spine and brain. Her life, she says, was changed forever.

As she struggled to recover, Markhbein started painting, to take her mind off of the physical and emotional pain she was experiencing. “When I was painting I did not have to face my injury. It was addictive. It was better than morphine,” she says.

The Dangers of Too Much Stuff

Excerpt from NFPA: (click for entire article)

It was a fire that alarmed an entire city: a blaze in a high-rise Toronto public housing complex that defied massive efforts to bring it under control. "I remember saying, ‘When is this going to go out?’," recalled Toronto Fire Chief William Stewart, who had anticipated a routine apartment fire, not a six-alarm inferno.

The 30-floor, 713-unit building was located on Wellesley Street in downtown Toronto. The fire began around 5 p.m. on September 24, 2010, when a cigarette was dropped from an upper floor into the west-facing balcony of a unit on the 24th floor. As firefighters would soon learn, unit 2424 was no ordinary household. The 560-square-foot (52-square-meter), one-bedroom apartment was stuffed with paper and possessions, and the balcony where the fire started was just as packed.

Fanned by winds with temperatures in the high 80s, the balcony fire spread into the apartment. A fire alarm was initiated, and the first units from the Toronto Fire Department responded. Arriving firefighters were prevented from getting into the unit by the high heat in the hallway; the building was constructed in the 1960s and was  unsprinklered, allowing the fire to grow rapidly. The high fuel load in the apartment soon turned the hallway into what one fire expert called "a tunnel of hell." The radiant heat was so intense that the door of the unit across the hall began to burn.

Court orders cleanup of Ypsilanti Township hoarder's condo

Excerpt from AnnArbor.com: (click for entire article)

A Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge has ordered the cleanup of an Ypsilanti Township condominium littered with raw meat — among other debris, including dead rodents — within 21 days.

In a verified petition filed with the court, township attorneys allege Wingate Park condominium owner Elmer Sheldon is hoarding the meat. Sheldon told township building inspectors he is homeless and no longer lives in the condo.

Mom charged after son dies at 'deplorable' home overrun with animals

Excerpt from the Chicago Tribune: (click for entire article)

The scene was shocking enough when police answered a call at the small brick bungalow in Berwyn.

A 14-year-old boy, severely mentally disabled, wearing only a T-shirt, lying in the backyard and not breathing.

As he was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said they made a gruesome discovery inside. Four children -- ages 12 to 18 -- who had never been to school, living with more than 200 animals in a home covered by feces and infested with spiders and hundreds of hissing cockroaches that measured four to five inches.

Almost 100 Cats Seized From Hoarder

Excerpt from KPHO: (click for entire article)

The Yavapai Humane Society and Purebred Cat Breed Rescue Inc. have been busy the last couple of days, removing 96 cats from a home near Cottonwood.

Dr. Linda Mercer, president of the rescue organization, said the cats were owned by an elderly woman who had been breeding Siamese, Scottish Fold, Pixie-Bob, Manx and Bengal cats for profit. The woman had became infirm, and in the last few years the home developed into a hoarding situation, Mercer said. The owner is now hospitalized and has relinquished the cats to Mercer's group.

The cats will be evaluated for adoption and illness. Those deemed suitable for adoption will be spayed orneutered, vaccinated and tested for FIV/FeLV before being offered to the public.

An Unwanted Inheritance

Excerpt from Newsweek: (click for entire article)

Greg Martin wasn’t sure what to expect when his mother died last May, forcing him to return to his childhood home for the first time in nearly 18 years. The house, located on a pleasant block in San Diego, had always been cluttered, but now it was virtually uninhabitable. “There were piles as tall as me, six feet or so,” Greg said. “Where there used to be floor, there were trails—a foot and a half high, so you’d be walking on stuff.” Greg was forced to navigate through piles of magazines, papers, and books, plastic bags filled with thrift-store purchases, expired medicine bottles and literally tons of clothes. The only “living space” was a small pocket by the front door, where his mother, a colorful and fiercely independent woman, had collapsed shortly before her death at the age of 83. Greg, who has taken a leave of absence from his job, expected that cleaning out the house would take six months. It’s now been eight—and counting.

Life Expectancy Lags in the U.S., But It May Be on the Upswing

Excerpt from Time Healthland: (click for entire article)

Americans don't live as long as people in other wealthy nations on average, and they're less healthy overall. And although American life expectancy has been ticking up over the last 25 years, it's been rising more slowly than in countries like Japan, France and Australia, widening the global longevity gap. It's a confusing phenomenon, especially considering that the U.S. spends far more on health care than any other nation in the world.

That's why the National Institute on Aging asked the National Research Council to assemble a panel of experts to study the problem. The resulting report, which was released Tuesday, pinpoints some key causes, many of which should sound familiar: heart disease, smoking, obesity, lack of exercise, income disparity and unequal access to care.

Elderly Hoarder Says She'll Handle Everything Herself

Excerpt from Fox 4 KC: (click for entire article)

An elderly south Kansas City woman who was kicked out of her cluttered home, and who a good Samaritan says has refused her help and the help of city officials, says that she just wants to be back in her own home, with her own things.

Alice Stanbra, 87, says that she has heart problems and has been living in her car since KCMO condemmed her home last November because of the extreme clutter. But she also says that she has everything under control.

"I don't bother nobody," said Stanbra. "I mean, I never asked anybody for anything."

Social workers turn attention to animal hoarders

Excerpt from Javma News: (click for entire article)

Dealing with animal hoarding should be about helping the hoarders as well as the animals, according to social workers who consult on such cases.

Social workers increasingly are tending to the human issues that arise in human-animal relationships (see story, page 1346). Just a few social workers have focused specifically on animal hoarding, however.

"Without counseling, you're going to see recidivism," said Jane N. Nathanson, a Boston social worker in private practice who counsels animal hoarders. "You're not addressing the needs of the person."

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Also see Addressing Human Needs - New discipline of veterinary social work focuses on human side of human-animal bond

Almost everyone has clutter, but hoarders take it to extreme

Excerpt from Freep.com: (click for entire article)

Maybe, just maybe, you like to save things: old newspapers or a black-and-white TV with rabbit ears or boxes of clothes or bundles of electrical wires and cords, spun together like spaghetti gone mad, and you can't bring yourself to throw it away, none of it -- why? -- because you could sell it, you might give it away, because it's so valuable; maybe you love to shop; you love to hunt for bargains or find gems at a yard sale, and it's a rush to find something special; maybe your closet is a mess or your attic or your basement; all that stuff piles up, like phrases in a jumbled, run-on sentence, compounding in a complicated swirl. And someday soon, you will weed through all your stuff and organize it, all of it, but not right now. Not yet.